Ecclesiology

Yuri Koszarycz

The Results of the Disputes

The sack of Constantinople on April 13, 1204, dealt the
final blow to relations between these two branches of the Christian
Communion. It was an occasion of plunder and destruction seldom
equalled for horror even in modern history. The great city, which
had remained unconquered ever since its foundation in the fourth
century, contained unique treasures of Christian art and learning.
This was also the place where all the great relics of Christian
piety had been stored by the Emperor. The riches of its Churches
and especially of its Cathedral of St. Sophia, were unsurpassed
in the whole world. Soldiers and Latin clergy vied with each
other in their attempts to seize some part of these riches for
themselves; even the precious Holy Altar of St. Sophia was polluted,
broken in pieces and sold. Most of it was, however, simply lost
or destroyed and only meagre remnants reached Europe.

Greek writers could not find words adequate to express
their disgust and exasperation at the sight of such plundering,
and their descriptions found confirmation in the epistle of Pope
Innocent III, addressed to his Cardinal in Constantinople. The
Pope's denunciation of the sacrileges committed by the Crusaders
bear out the statements of Greek writings. This day, April 13,
1204 marks the end of the fellowship between Eastern and Western
Christians. The split was brought about, not by quarrelsome theologians
or ambitious prelates, as is usually suggested, but by the greed
and lust of those men who, in the name of the Prince of Peace,
had embarked upon a war of aggression and conquest.

The horrors of the sack of the great Byzantine cities brought
about a radical change of attitude among the ordinary members
of the Church. Up to this time the feeling of competition between
the Christian East and the West had been confined to a few prelates
and to the narrow circle of the Court. The mass of Christians
has the oneness of the Church and therefore all ecclesiastical
disputes had sooner or later been brought to a satisfactory conclusion.
But after the aggression of the Crusaders a deep sense of indignation
spread all over the Christian East. The bulk of Church members
refused to recognise the Westerners any longer as their brothers
and sisters in Christ. During the course of the next two centuries
the secular and ecclesiastical rulers of the Byzantine Empire,
under the rapidly growing threat of the Moslem domination, tried
hard to come to some understanding the Christian West. At Lyons
in 1274 and at Florence in 1439 reconciliation between the bishops
of Rome and Constantinople was achieved; but it came to nothing,
for the Eastern Christians stubbornly refused to enter into communion
with the offenders. After the outrages of Knights it was the
Eastern laity which became the stronghold of opposition to reunion,
and all efforts on the part of prelates to bridge the gulf proved
a complete failure.

Whatever had been the mistakes of the past, undoubtedly
in the last and fatal stage of the disruption of Christian unity
the East was the victim and the West the aggressor. The conduct
of the latter during the succeeding centuries was the logical
result of their particular role in the quarrel. Somewhere in
the depths of its conscience the Christian West has retained
a memory of the crime it once committed. Ever since that time
it has been troubled by the very existence of the Christian East;
it has frequently been tempted to resume negotiations with the
Orthodox Christians; it has tried hard to force them to accept
its leadership and to exchange their traditions for Latin or
Protestant forms of Christianity. It has employed cajolery, promises
and threats; it has calumniated the Orthodox faith and practice
and attacked the Eastern Church whenever possible; it has never
been able to leave the East alone, and both the Roman and Protestant
Churches have displayed a striking similarity in their conduct.

The line taken by the Eastern Christians was the very opposite:
they refused to pardon the offenders; they were unable to swallow
the insult and take part in a reconciliation. Resentful and embittered,
they displayed a complete indifference to the fate of Western
Christians, and had but one wish: to be left alone. They ceased
to recognise any moral link between themselves and the Christian
West, and considered the Latins as idolaters who worshipped the
Pope, and Protestants as still worse, since they had elevated
the Book to the position which should be occupied by God alone.

A study of the relations between East and West during the
last 800 years is a sordid and melancholy business. Both parties
wilfully persisted in their errors; one side was arrogant, the
other unforgiving: the West tried hard to induce the East to
submit; the latter remained firm in its refusal to open its heart
and mind to those who had formerly been allies and who had violated
the bond of peace and love. There is little hope of any improvement
in the relations between Eastern and Western Christians until
the true cause of the schism is fully recognised. It is a fact
of paramount importance that the split was occasioned not by
any doctrinal disagreement, but by political and cultural differences
which flared up into open warfare at the time of Crusades.